The Unicode 3.0 specification does address sort orders more. There is
no discussion of inter-language sorting that I can recall (I have the
new book -- it is sold at Borders, but it is a continent away for the
moment). Sort-orders are specific identifiable things though. The
Unicode approach appears to be a descriptive one, not normative in the
sense of imposing one (or a few), and the references from the Unicode
specification to where these recognized sort orders are defined and
normalized need to be traced.
I am not that confident in implementers as you! (I am sitting here in
Italy watching multi-language issues show up left and right as I
research some connectivity problems using the Internet and various
European -- the problem should be understood here, yes? -- customer
support numbers, etc.)
This is an area that is on my list of coherence topics. I can look at
it farther -- I will be looking at it farther -- but not until summer
(i.e., starting early June) when I return to home base.
-- Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: www-webdav-dasl-request@w3.org
[mailto:www-webdav-dasl-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Jim Whitehead
Sent: Wednesday, 19 April 2000 15:02
To: www-webdav-dasl@w3.org
Subject: JW24a (i18n sort ordering)
[ ... ]
First, there doesn't appear to be a normative specification on sort
ordering
available. The Unicode consortium, which has done a lot of work on these
issues, has a set of implementation guidelines that DASL should
reference.
However, at least for the Unicode 2.0 standard (the latest version that
I
have access to -- there is a new, 3.0 version that was just released),
this
mainly focuses on sorting a sequence where everything is in the same
language. But, in DASL, we could potentially receive results in
multiple
languages, and I haven't run across any writing that provides guidance
for
the case where the results are in multiple languages.
So, I think the best DASL can do is reference best cur
rent practice, i.e.,
the Unicode 3.0 standard's implementation guideline section on sort
ordering, and note that there is this other problem that nobody has much
insight into. We should note that it is outside of our realm of
expertise to
address these i18n issues, and leave resolution firmly in the hands of
implementors.
- Jim